1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to networked computer systems, and more particularly to a system and method for providing a synchronized display of information on a plurality of computer workstations over a computer network.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
In recent years, the proliferation of computers and advances in computing technology have had a profound impact on the way in which companies communicate, maintain records, and conduct business generally. Computer networks have been utilized to such great extent that email is rapidly replacing the telephone for many communications. Although increased sophistication in computer systems has enhanced the way that many companies conduct business, further improvements and efficiencies are desired.
As one illustration, the advance in computer technology has facilitated the ability to perform computer-based training. Traditionally, when a company, an educational facility, or other enterprise give presentations, seminars, classes, or other training, the individuals, employees, etc. desiring to attend traveled to a particular site in order to physically attend the presentation. This, however, imposed substantial costs (in both time and money), if the individual attendees were otherwise geographically dispersed. Video conferencing (as often used by businesses) is one means of facilitating such a presentation, without incurring the costs typically associated with collecting the attendees at a single location. This approach, however, requires that the various satellite broadcast locations be equipped with video conferencing equipment, which imposes a separate expense of its own.
In computer-based training, computers and computer networks are used as the medium for communication. An instructor at a certain location may control the presentation of information slides to a plurality of satellite locations. In this regard, the term xe2x80x9cinformation slidexe2x80x9d has a relatively broad connotation, referring generally to a single screen of one or more objects (which objects may be graphic, video, sound, etc.) Information slides could be, for example, the relatively simple slides of a Microsoft Power-Point presentation, a Lotus Freelance presentation, or the more complex multimedia integration of RadMedia PowerMedia. As is known, these tools may include features like: graphics tools, text management, import and export various external graphics formats, sequencing capabilities allowing unattended viewing, and transitions between slides for better visual impact.
As has been known in the past, slides prepared for a lecture are often primarily text with small amounts of clip art added. They are typically logically and sequentially ordered, and are played back as paced by an instructor. Often, the information slides do not contain the full details of all the lecture information, but rather are xe2x80x9cfilled inxe2x80x9d by instructor narrative. In this regard, technology, like simultaneous voice/data modems, allows for the simultaneous transmission and reception of voice and data information.
Presentations in this environment typically occur in one of several ways. In one way, the playback (e.g., on a computer workstation or other device) of the various information slides may be timed in accordance with a predefined time per slide. The entire presentation may be sent beforehand to the individual remote locations, and all locations are prompted to coordinate the initiation of the presentation at the same time. Thereafter, the presentation (slide to slide) may be presented at all locations in a synchronous fashion. The instructor, viewing the same timed presentation, then speaks to each information slide as it is presented. This approach, however, has several disadvantages. First, it is extremely inflexible insofar as the instructor must stay paced with the predetermined timing of the information slides. Furthermore, it requires some level of cooperation among persons at the various remote locations to instruct the workstations to initiate the presentations at the same time. Accordingly, this in effect is simply a simultaneous execution of a common presentation, and no synchronization is actually performed.
Such a system may be modified to provide a loosely-coupled synchronization by having a person designated at each remote location to control the respective workstations to switch to a certain informational slide. For example, suppose a presentation includes a series of information slides numbered 1 through fifty. All fifty slides are pre-distributed to all the remote locations. Then, as the instructor gives the presentation, the instructor will verbally instruct the designees at each satellite location which slide to select and when. One problem with this setup is that it requires an active participant at each and every location to xe2x80x9crunxe2x80x9d the workstation. It also requires a significant amount of xe2x80x9cout of bandxe2x80x9d communication by the instructor, to instruct the designees on slide presentation (e.g., xe2x80x9cnow proceed to slide number 24xe2x80x9d).
Another method known in the prior art relates to the presentation of instructor-directed information slides to a plurality of workstations, using specialized (or even proprietary) software over a local area network (LAN). Such a platform may provide a more robust presentation in that a network server may coordinate and synchronize the display of the presentation slides to the various xe2x80x9csatellitexe2x80x9d or viewing workstations. Such a presentation need not be configured to display at any predetermined time intervals. Instead, the instructor may control the display of individual information slides, which network server then may controllably route to the various viewing satellite workstations. When using specialized or proprietary software, however, the broadcast of such a presentation is necessarily limited to a select group of workstations, such as a corporate LAN or similar homogeneous, tightly controlled environment.
Accordingly, it is desired to provide a system that offers improved control and flexibility in the presentation of computer-based instructional sessions among widely distributed audiences using diverse computer platforms.
Certain objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description that follows and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following or may be learned with the practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.
To achieve the advantages and novel features, the present invention is generally directed to a system for providing a synchronized presentation of slides over a computer network. In accordance with one aspect of the invention, the system includes a plurality of computer workstations disposed in electrical communication across the computer network, each workstation running a Web browser application (e.g. Netscape""s Navigator, Microsoft""s Explorer, etc.). An instructor applet is executed under a browser application at a first of the plurality of computer workstations, and at least one student applet is executed under a browser application at a second of the plurality of computer workstations. Initially, all participating browsers (running either the instructor or student applet) retrieve a web document that is itself an ordered list of URLs that define the totality of the presentation. Finally, a network server is provided and, in response to an initial request from the instructor applet, starts an auxiliary server, which runs a synchronization application that is responsive to the instructor applet for managing a plurality of URLs that define the totality of the presentation. Changes to this current slide can be linear, such as xe2x80x9cNextxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cPreviousxe2x80x9d, or nonlinear, as in xe2x80x9cgo to the second to the last slidexe2x80x9d. The instructor applet reports the current slide number to the synchronization application.
The student applets are responsive to the synchronization application by receiving updates to the ordinal value of the URL in the predefined list. Upon receipt of an update received from the synchronization application (which was triggered by an update from the instructor applet), each of the student applets will instruct its respective browser to retrieve and display the URL designated by the instructor as the current slide of interest. The display is synchronized in that the same presentation URL is displayed at the instructor workstation and each of the plurality of student workstations with no additional intervention by the human students.
Additionally, the synchronization process/auxiliary server is responsive to directed requests from the student applet for the current slide. Such requests occur at the initiation of a new student session, to allow xe2x80x9ctardyxe2x80x9d students to join the presentation in progress. Once joined to the presentation, a student may skip ahead or backward in the presentation, since each student applet contains the list of URLs that defines the totality of the presentation. Indeed, the invention does not preclude a human student from xe2x80x9cwandering offxe2x80x9d and browsing outside the realm of the predefined presentation. At any time the student may return to the presentation at the slide of interest by requesting information from the synchronization application.
In short, the present invention operates by synchronizing the display of information slides among an instructor applet (running on a first workstation) and one or more student applets (running on other workstations). In one embodiment, the student applets operate in a xe2x80x9cslavexe2x80x9d mode, whereby the display of informational slides is substantially passive (from the user perspective), except for the initialization of the application (i.e., calling up and beginning the presentation by downloading the applet and the list of URLs that defines the presentation). The invention allows a person operating the instructor applet to identify information slides for display on both the instructor workstation and the student workstations.
Typically, an instructor (human) will prepare the content of information slides that comprise a presentation. However, in accordance with the inventive concepts, the instructor may simply identify and designate existing Web pages to comprise a presentation. Indeed, a significant aspect of the invention is that the information slides require no special processing or pre-formatting, and every slide could conceivably exist as a URL on a separate Web server. For example, a person (instructor) may xe2x80x9csurfxe2x80x9d the Web identifying various Web sites that contain information that the instructor would like to consolidate and present as a single encapsulated presentation. This may be done simply by noting the URLs that define the various Web locations that correspond to the information to be presented and implicitly the order of their presentation. The URLs may be collected and stored as a single web document and placed on a Web server. Thereafter, the instructor and student applets need only access the URL at the Web server to retrieve the single document containing the list of URLs that defines the totality of the presentation. In this way, a robust presentation may be assembled simply by identifying information (that is already available) on the Web. Accordingly, a significant aspect of the invention is that the information slides may be located virtually anywhere on the Internet, and thus allow for a robust presentation.
A significant feature of the present invention is that it provides for synchronization between the display of information slides among the instructor workstation and one or more student workstations. This synchronization is preferably achieved by one or more student applets establishing a connection to the lecture synchronization server application (running on the auxiliary server). For each URL/slide location identified by the instructor (human), the server application communicates this same information to each of the student applets that have established a connection with the synchronization server. In this manner, the information slide designated by the URLs selected by the instructor may also be displayed on the student workstations.
A significant feature of the present invention is that the structure of the web document that defines the list of URLs provides both fault tolerance and backward compatibility. In the preferred embodiment, the instructor and student applets directly download said document at the beginning of a presentation; thus all applets maintain an internal list. The document that defines this list is constructed as a valid HTML web document which could be loaded directly into a browser. Such a browser could be incapable of supporting the Java language environment. Although the benefits of automatic synchronization are lost, a remote student is not precluded from following the lecture manually.
A significant feature of the present invention is that the student applet may run independently of an instructor applet and synchronization server. This allows human students to browse presentations at their leisure, xe2x80x9cofflinexe2x80x9d from an instructor-led session.
In accordance with a preferred embodiment, the system does not preclude any currently known means for communicating voice information from the workstation executing the instructor applet to each of the workstations executing the student applets. Although voice information may be separately provided (in parallel) using telephone and an independent PSTN connection, this may also be integrally implemented with, for example, the use of simultaneous voice/data modems. In accordance with this aspect of the invention, an instructor (person) operating the instructor applet may speak/lecture to each slide that he or she is presenting at any given time. Through known communication methodologies (which need not be described herein) both the voice information and data may be communicated across the network to all the student applets.